Schooled in Magic (6 page)

It bent its head down towards the ground. “You may ride on my back. None will dare harm you while I am here.”

Void nodded to Emily. “You can trust him to take you to Whitehall,” he said. “And I will see you again, soon enough.”

Emily hugged him, suddenly, and then turned to face the dragon. She’d always had the impression that dragons were romantic, but there was nothing romantic about
this
dragon. Up close, there was a faintly disconcerting smell–sulfur, she guessed–and the scales felt uncomfortably hot to the touch. Years ago, at a petting zoo, she’d touched a snake, but this was very different. Touching the dragon was like touching an armored tank that had been out in the sun.

“Use the scales to climb on my back,” the dragon said. It sounded vastly amused at her struggles. “You cannot hurt me.”

Emily hesitated, and then scrambled up, half-expecting to feel scales giving way under her weight. But nothing happened. She reached the dragon’s back and swung her legs over the side, clutching a scaly hump that rose up in front of her. A moment later, there was a sudden gust of wind and the dragon threw itself upwards, into the air. The ground dropped away with terrifying speed. Emily yelped and clutched the hump tighter, trying not to look at the ground, or at the wings as they flexed against the air. She’d flown in airplanes before, of course, but this was different. She knew there was nothing between her and the ground. If she fell, she would plummet to her death.

The airflow seemed remarkably mild as the dragon twisted in midair, rather like a rollercoaster, and snapped at a bird with its sharp teeth. There was a brief explosion of feathers and nothing else, apart from a dragonish gulp. Emily shivered again as the dragon leveled out and started to fly away from the tower; somehow, she managed to turn just long enough to see Void’s tower as it receded into the distance. It looked like a giant chess piece, standing alone in the middle of the forest.

There was a wave of heat as the dragon blew fire into the air, its entire body flexing underneath her. Emily told herself firmly not to be scared, trying to convince her eyes to look back down at the ground. If she’d had any doubts that she was in a different world, they would have faded away when she saw the villages below. They were primitive, utterly untouched by the modern world. The only genuine road she saw reminded her of the stone roads the Romans had built when they’d conquered most of Europe; the remainder were little more than muddy paths traversed by horses and carts. Most of the fields were tiny compared to the ones she’d seen back home, worked by hand rather than by combine harvesters. If she recalled correctly, medieval farming had never been very efficient. It had taken the development of modern technology to make farming on a vast scale profitable.

Down below, she caught sight of people working in the fields. It was hard to be certain, but they looked to have been beaten down, as if they knew that they weren’t working for themselves. Perhaps they weren’t, she told herself, as she saw a handful of others who were clearly standing guard, watching the workers. Armed guards, she guessed, as the dragon flew over a small castle-like building at the centre of a number of villages. The local baron probably lived there, exploiting the peasants and taking all of their crops for himself. Perhaps he didn’t even leave them enough to live on.

The dragon blew more fire into the air as it flew over a colossal lake sailed by hundreds of tiny fishing boats. Emily glanced to the other side and saw that the lake was actually a giant inlet linked to the sea, allowing sailors to dock their boats on the shore where they were sheltered from storms and powerful waves. None of the boats looked particularly advanced either. The largest she could see was not much bigger than a fishing boat from back home. Perhaps they didn’t bring the bigger sailing ships into the lake, or perhaps they simply didn’t exist. Void hadn’t said much about local geography, but he’d hinted that the necromancers were pushing in on the Allied Lands. Perhaps the Allied Lands had no time to explore the rest of their world. Coming to think of it, she asked herself, did they even know that their world was a sphere?

If this world is a sphere
, she thought, after a moment. If magic was real, why couldn’t there be a flat world?

In the distance, a wall of mountains rose up in front of them, covered with hardy green plants that seemed to provide food and shelter for a tiny human population. The dragon roared and lunged forward, diving between the peaks and dancing through the mountains, playing chicken with the rocky walls. A long valley opened up in front of them and the dragon flew down it, heedless of the small village hidden away from the rest of the world. Emily winced in horror as she caught sight of people staring at the dragon, then running away in terror. They had to think that the dragon was intent on eating them, or on eating their animals. A woman stood up at the edge of the village, shouting at the dragon, only to be ignored. The dragon was too high for Emily to make out even a single word.

But how could she understand
anyone
in this world?

The dragon chuckled as he lifted up above a mountain peak, and then dived down into another valley. This one seemed to be completely deserted, nothing more than trees and flowers hidden away by mountain peaks. The dragon jinked right and left, before flying up and over a giant statue that someone had carved into the side of the mountain. Even
looking
at that statue gave Emily a chill. She’d seen pictures of giant statues that had been destroyed in Afghanistan, but this one was larger–and clearly not human. Giant pointed ears dominated a face so cruel and calculating as to be completely alien, with eyes made black gemstones that glowed in the shadow cast by the statue. Beyond it, there were a row of seats looking out over a depression in the rock. It took her a moment to realize that she was looking at a sporting arena. The entire area seemed completely deserted ... ... yet she felt the hackles rising on her neck as the dragon lifted up into the air. It felt as if they were being watched by unfriendly eyes.

Helplessly, she glanced around, feeling the sensation growing stronger and stronger with every second. There was nothing that
looked
threatening, apart from the statue itself, but it was just a statue. Wasn’t it?

But this was a world where magic worked, she reminded herself. A statue might come to life and fight the dragon in a world like this, for all she knew.

The sensation fell away as the dragon lifted even higher into the air, leaving the eerie statue and arena behind. Emily allowed herself a sigh of relief as the mountains became foothills, revealing a ruined city on the other side. It looked as if someone had bombed it to hell and then the citizens had abandoned it. There were hundreds of damaged buildings, along with dozens of statues that had been knocked to the ground. One towering building had been left intact, right in the centre of the city; the remainder had simply been wrecked by whatever force had torn the city apart. Emily wondered absently if Hiroshima had looked like that, before trying to deduce what magicians would use in place of a mundane atomic bomb. Maybe they enslaved dragons and used them to wage war on entire cities ... again, there was no way to know.

She shivered as the dragon flew away from the city and over the desolate, barren wasteland. There were hundreds of towns and villages, all abandoned and left to rot. In places, there were only a handful of signs that there had ever been a village or town there at all. There were no living humans. The inhabitants had fled or had been killed by the forces that had destroyed their homes.

Puzzled, Emily stared at the wreckage, trying to work out just how long it had been since the city and the surrounding countryside had been destroyed. Surely, a medieval village wouldn’t last very long if it had been completely abandoned ... but then, some European cities had structures dating back over two thousand years. She shook her head, dismissing the problem as insoluble. It would have to be answered at Whitehall.

Carefully, keeping one hand holding on to the dragon’s skin, she opened her knapsack and found a roll of bread with some meat, a very makeshift sandwich. Void’s kitchen staff had produced enough food to last her for several days, along with four bottles of water–Void had told her that the bottles were spelled to keep the water cool - and one of a green liquid that smelled vaguely like lime. She ate the sandwich thoughtfully, washing it down with more of the pure boiled water. There was no way to know how long it would be until she reached Whitehall, or what might happen before she was admitted to the school. She might need to save the rest of the sandwiches for later.

Emily shook her head, wondering at herself. Yesterday, she had been bored of life, desperate to escape her family. Today, she was flying on a dragon ... and somehow she’d come to accept it without any real quibbles. She was in deep trouble–Shadye wanted her dead, others might want to keep her alive, draining her power into themselves–and yet she felt excited, delighted to be here.

Maybe, after being so long in the shadows, her real life could begin. Or maybe, coming here meant she would finally have a chance to be someone important.

The ground changed so rapidly that she missed the moment when overgrown towns and villages became nothing more than charred ash on the ground. It looked to have been consumed with fire, burned to the ground until there was literally nothing left. She took a breath and tasted wet ashes floating on the air. The wasteland stretched as far as the eye could see, broken only by faint hints that the firestorm had raged over cities too well-built to be completely reduced to ash.

Emily took another breath and felt the tint of magic in the air, sparking against the magic field that kept the dragon aloft. She glanced towards the massive wings and saw blue-green sparks dancing along the scaly surface, moving with an eerie silence that chilled her to the bone.

And then they were suddenly back in the mountains. The sparks faded away into nothingness. Emily breathed a long sigh of relief and tried to relax. It didn’t work. The sight below the dragon chilled her to the bone.

These mountains were different from the previous mountain range. The firestorm that had scorched the countryside to ash had raged through these mountains too. There were no plants or trees growing on the craggy stone; everything had been wiped away, leaving nothing, but naked stone.

Emily shivered again.

Then the air suddenly grew colder, just before the dragon twisted and headed towards a towering building perched atop a mountain. As they flew closer, she realized that the mountain was actually
part
of the building and that it was sitting alone, surrounded by another hidden valley of greenery. Unlike the creepy alien city, there were humans in the valley, some staring up at the dragon. Others seemed intent on ignoring it.

Up close, the giant castle appeared to be built from pure marble. It glowed white in the sunlight, a beacon of hope against the darkness pressing in from the other side of the mountains.

Emily remembered what Void had said about the lack of entangling alliances and realized, in dismay, that Whitehall was right on the border between the Allied Lands and the necromancers. The necromancers would have to push their way through Whitehall to fall on the Allied Lands beyond.

The castle blurred into the mountain, hinting that the interior had been completely hollowed out and converted into living space for the students and their tutors. Given what Void had said about the Allied Lands not cooperating very well, it was possible that many of the forces gathered to fight the necromancers were
also
based at Whitehall. Or perhaps she was wrong.

She braced herself as the dragon came to a halt, hovering in the air like a giant hummingbird, before dropping down towards the ground, claws extended for a safe landing. The giant creature touched the ground so lightly that, for a moment, Emily didn’t even realize that they
had
landed.

“You may disembark,” the dragon rumbled. Emily hastened to obey. “I will consider the debt between myself and your master settled.”

Emily wanted to point out that Void was hardly her master, that he’d actually refused to consider taking her as his apprentice, but she doubted that the dragon would care.

“Thank you,” she said. Her legs felt weak and unstable after the flight, forcing her to lean against the dragon’s hot scales until she felt able to walk on her own. “I -”

The dragon spoke over her. “You should be aware that your master is playing a very dangerous game,” he said.

Emily looked up in surprise. She’d thought that the dragons were largely uninterested in humanity.

It was impossible to read any expression on the scaly face. “His plan may cost your world dearly.”

Emily hesitated, and then asked. “What do you mean?”

The dragon said nothing. Instead, he flexed its wings and launched himself upwards into the sky.

Emily watched as he rapidly dwindled into a tiny dot that vanished in the sunlight. Then, she sensed someone standing behind her. When she turned around, she saw a little man whose head barely came up to her chest, wearing a red robe and carrying a staff that was taller than he was. His head, completely bald, reminded her of a Japanese warrior monk from some of the bad films she’d watched as a teenager.

He wore a cloth over his eyes, but she had the sense that he could see her, somehow. “I am the Grandmaster,” he said. His voice was stilted, as if he couldn’t be bothered to speak naturally. “You are welcome to Whitehall.”